Yesterday was a busy one. After doing the blog, I spent most of the morning hanging up the garlic I had harvested, to dry. It did not require much physical energy, but I was on my feet the whole time.
After lunch I went to the “Celebration of Life” for one of my friends and long time Forestry co-workers who had recently died. Again, it didn’t require much exertion, but a lot of sitting, and socializing. By the time it was over, my energy level was drained.
Once back home and feeling worn out, I did some reading, and while I sat on the lanai, I actually became aware of how tired my legs were, despite the fact that I really hadn’t exerted them very much all day.
It was then that my wife informed me that the water pressure in our house was almost nil. That news filled me with horror, because if the water stopped, it meant a hike up to Sunbeam Falls to see what had happened to our water system. I did hold up a slight hope that maybe it was just our water filter under the house that was clogged.
I went to the hydrant by the barn to see if the main waterline was running. I pulled up the handle, and got nothing. Our waterline was empty, and it meant a hike up to Sunbeam Falls to fix it. That was not a welcome prospect for my tired legs and low energy level, but when we lose water, we have to get on it, and fix the problem quickly.
I called Nick my neighbor, who would also be out of water, to see if he had time to go up to the falls with me to help fix the situation. Nick, who was then in town, answered the phone and said, “Give me seven minutes to get home.”
The two of us then started climbing the hill up to our water intake culvert. I figured that the problem was either our water intake pipe screen was clogged with debris, or else a lot of rocks and debris had built up on the heavy screen at the top of our culvert, blocking water from going into the culvert.
When we got to the culvert I saw that I had overlooked a third possibility: There was just not enough water coming down the falls to fill up our culvert. The amount of water in our culvert had fallen so low that it was no longer going into our waterline intake pipe.
There were three stream of water coming down the falls, the central and main one channeled into our culvert, but there were streams of water on each side of it that went around, and missed our culvert. To fill our culvert, we had to divert those outside streams of water and channel them into our culvert. It meant climbing up on the slippery rocks above our culvert and moving big rocks and small boulders into place so that the water was re-directed toward our culvert.
Although I had been tired before the waterline problem, being in the cold water coming down the falls was bracing. It quickly woke me up, refreshed me, and energized me.
Once we had re-channeled the water on the falls, our culvert began to fill up and overflow, so Nick and I headed back down the trail and home.
Having a low flow on Sunbeam Creek is a worrying situation, and something that never used to happen. I sure hope the flow doesn’t get any lower, because that would create some real problems.
Thus is life in rural BC.
Take a look at my paintings: davidmarchant2.ca
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